


Strength Through Distance

by dentedsky



Category: DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dentedsky/pseuds/dentedsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yunho and Changmin go to Los Angeles with a little awkwardness between them. They share a token, a few moments, and with distance their hearts grow stronger. It was never a question of love but rather a question of when.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength Through Distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transitorial](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=transitorial).



> Based on a few fanaccounts I read about SMTownLA.

Yunho wished he had the patience for airports like some of his other co-workers did. Like Kyuhyun, for instance, with his amiable wave and smile. He felt that if he even tried he would end up with the kind of grin that was more like a grimace, caught on one hundred different shaky fan cams. He’d seen Shindong do it. He wasn’t up for making that mistake.

If he was in a good mood he would purse his lips and practice whistling. Otherwise it was a default strut, sunglasses perched precariously on his nose, chin lifted and mouth half open, as he and the staff walked through the airport. He looked behind him to check for Changmin and saw him trailing behind with his personal bodyguard. No doubt he would deviate to the bookshop and Yunho would lose him, anxiety sitting low and ignored in his gut.

*

Yunho sat back in his seat, leaned in towards Changmin and smiled as one of the staff members took their picture. “For facebook,” she said, before bowing and moving on to SHINee.

Changmin opened the bag that was already on his lap and took out a small, wrapped package. The wrapping paper was pink with hearts. Yunho caught his eyes and lifted his eyebrows in question.

“A fan present,” said Changmin, unapologetically. “She shoved it into my hands as we were boarding.”

Yunho hadn’t noticed her, and felt a twinge of self-depreciation at his carelessness. Changmin ripped open the rest, and inside was a pair of key chains still in their plastic. Micky Mouse and Minnie Mouse.

Changmin took out Minnie first. He quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching before taking Minnie in index and thumb and walking her up Yunho’s arm. “Hello, my name is  _Minnie_.” Minnie stopped at Yunho’s shoulder and did a little dance. “What do you think of me?”

Yunho relaxed into a hearty laugh, throwing his head back against the seat.

Changmin’s eyes flicked around the airplane one more time before – “Chu!” – Minnie kissed Yunho on the cheek.

“Thanks,” said Yunho, still grinning as he took the key chain toy from Changmin. He cupped it in both hands and gave her tummy a little rub for good luck.

Two members of Exo ran down the aisle yelling at one another. Yunho quickly shoved Minnie in his pocket. Changmin, unperturbed, clipped Micky Mouse to his backpack and then asked the stewardess for a newspaper, which he read, unmoving, the entire flight to Los Angeles.

*

 

A knock on his hotel room door, and Yunho opened it to find Changmin standing there in his pyjamas, small bag of toiletries clutched to his chest.

Yunho stared.

“You want to spend the night here?” he asked in disbelief, not moving from the doorway, handle still held rigidly in one hand. “I thought – “

“I’m leaving early tomorrow morning,” said Changmin, with a flick of his hair. “I’m going with some of the others to Knotts Berry Farm.”

Yunho blinked several times, then stepped aside for Changmin to pad into the room. As he closed the door Yunho saw Changmin look around the small living space as if it was interesting. As if it was different from his own hotel room.

He didn’t want to assume anything, and Changmin didn’t seem to be giving his intentions away. “Are you going to sleep now?” asked Changmin.

Yunho had considered staying up and studying more English, even if that meant watching some more American television. But Changmin was in his hotel room in his cotton-soft pyjamas that didn’t quite reach his ankles, holding his toilet bag like it was a teddy bear, face shiny with fresh night cream and hair a rumpled mess. He looked adorable and Yunho wanted him.

“Yeah,” said Yunho.

After five minutes of fiddling about, they both got under the cool covers, then gravitated towards each other so they were on their backs, sides touching. Yunho plunged them in complete darkness by reaching over and turning off the bedside lamp.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to make the first move, since he didn’t know if Changmin just wanted to sleep with someone to avoid loneliness. But Yunho did move eventually, rolling over on top of Changmin, braced on his elbows, leaning down tentatively and searching for Changmin’s lips in the dark with his own, kissing his nose then his chin by accident, before finally getting his mouth. They kissed gently and slow, Changmin making a small noise in the back of his throat as their lips slid together. Blood rushed to Yunho’s groin at the little noises Changmin emitted, at the wet sounds the joining of their mouths made. He ground his hips down, felt Changmin’s respond with slow grinding of his own, his legs spreading wider.

It wasn’t the first time they’d ever made out. In fact, it was the third.

The first time was five years ago at a time when Changmin believed a computer’s only purpose was porn and Yunho was going through a self-depreciating phase about his body. They’d gotten drunk off cheap wine, hidden themselves in their work room, cranked up the music while porn played on the computer screens. Yunho remembered boobs bouncing up and down and Changmin shoving a camera in his face then shoving Yunho’s jumper  _up_  - then sticking his camera, then his hands, up Yunho’s crumpled shirt. Changmin kissed him, sloppily and drunkenly. Yunho couldn’t remember much else. The pictures had all turned out black or blurry.

The second time was two nights previous. Yunho had gone out with Donghae and Hyukjae, and Changmin had been at Kyuhyun’s house, and they’d both come back to the apartment at the same time, drunk and laughing, a duet chorus of “Hey!” “Hey!” “You’re here!” “I’m here!” “Your Yunho-hyung is here!” “My Yunho-hyung is here!” and stumbling through the door once Yunho had managed to get it open, clutching at each other, fisting each other’s jackets. There was a moment of them struggling out of their jackets, of flipping off their shoes, of unbuttoning the first few buttons of their shirts as Changmin skip-ran to the other side of the lounge room where their old sound system sat, the one they moved from the work room after they’d gotten a newer, better system. Changmin put on some pop-rock – it’s probably CNBlue, knowing Changmin’s taste – and both drunk off alcohol and camaraderie, preceded to dance like girls, then like idiots, then with one another: Yunho spinning Changmin around then waltzing him. Neither of them knowing where they were waltzing to, they ended up dancing into the couch and then falling onto it, sprawled and laughing, Changmin on top. Behind Changmin’s smiling face the ceiling spun.

Changmin framed Yunho’s face with hands. “Such a handsome man, I’m so jealous.” Then Changmin laughed, and leaned down and kissed him, swift and silly and chaste, like it was normal. Like they did it all the time.

Yunho had made the room spin faster by pulling Changmin down for more kisses, fast and enthusiastic.

*

In their hotel room, Yunho waited for Changmin to fall asleep next to him before sitting up in bed and smoking two cigarettes, one after the other.

Early the next morning Yunho half-awoke to Changmin leaning over him and smoothing back his hair. “Look, hyung,” Changmin had whispered, before taking a gulp of water from a water bottle, then tucking said water bottle into Yunho’s loose grip.

*

Yunho slept in late, then went to the hotel gym around mid-morning where he ran into Taemin. “You didn’t go to the amusement parks with the others?” Yunho asked him.

“No, the jetlag gets to me,” Taemin told him. “All I want to do is sleep, but I can’t.”

His manager caught him after his shower. “Lunch with the dancers – you up for it?”

They’d stopped at a cheesecake shop on the way, Yunho’s manager chuckling at Yunho’s choice of strawberry flavour. On the way back to the car a girl a few paces in front of them dropped her shopping, and after Yunho helped her picked them up a stilted conversation in English ensued. She recognised him.

She asked after Changmin.

Yunho pulled Minnie from his pocket and jiggled it, smiling encouragingly. She didn’t understand, and a part of him wondered if he entirely understood it himself.

*

He ran into Taemin in the foyer of the hotel, Yunho with the dancers half-drunk with bellies full of good dinner and beer. The dancers left to go upstairs. “Are you coming to see the fireworks?” Taemin asked with a light grab of Yunho’s wrist. Yunho looked down at it. He hadn’t meant to appear so dismayed, but Taemin must have caught something in his expression because he let go and instead threw his arms around Yunho’s waist, pressing his cheek against his chest.

“It’s going to be ok,” Taemin told him.

“I’m not – “ Yunho meant to say something reassuring, but his voice got caught in his throat. He forced his shoulders to relax before giving Taemin a resolute nod. “Of course it is.” Neither of them could explain it – the way Yunho missed Changmin so much it burned, hurt so much he could barely stand it. He didn’t like that he didn’t know where Changmin was, right at that moment, and was resisting calling him just to find out. He especially hated when Changmin sometimes ignored him when Kyuhyun was around, but at the same time he knew it was important to give each other space and to have their own friends. There wasn’t much between them left to share, so he understood how important distance was. He  _did_  understand.

Distance makes the heart grow stronger, as his mother used to say.

Although the words were never spoken, like holy scripture it was written all over Yunho’s face and body language.

They went to Disneyland incognito with two bodyguards. Taemin met up with his manager and his band members almost straight away.

Yunho stuck his hands in his pockets – one hand fiddling with Minnie and then other held his phone. He pulled out his phone and stared at the screen. Gently thumbed the options.

“Just call him,” his bodyguard told him gruffly.

Yunho looked at him. His bodyguard was a heavy set man who didn’t seem to ever have an expression beyond grim. Tonight was no exception. Turning back to his phone with a nervous swallow, Yunho navigated to ‘Changdol’ and pressed the call button.

“Hyung,” Changmin answered, “where are you?”

“Disneyland. The fireworks are about to start – oh, they’ve started.” Yunho looked up to see bursts of colour fill the night sky with sounds like the distant cracks of whips, the vibrant explosions like blooming flowers before sinking and fading.

There was heavy breathing on the other end of the line, as if Changmin was running. Then Changmin said, breathlessly, “Beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it.” Yunho smiled to himself, repressing burst of warmth he felt at the sound of Changmin’s soft voice. Feeling eyes on him, he looked away from the sky and to the side to see Changmin standing a few metres away, staring right at him. Their phones slid slowly down their cheeks as they were lowered. Yunho tore his eyes away and ended the call, shoving the phone in his pocket.

Yunho wasn’t sure who stepped off first, but suddenly they were both jogging towards one another, then hugging tight for just a moment, before letting go. Their hands slid together naturally and, side-by-side, they watched the fireworks rupture across the night sky.

*

“Stop thinking,” Changmin told him as he kneeled on the bed behind Yunho. He rubbed oil into Yunho’s bare shoulders. “You’re always thinking too much.”

“Ah, yeah,” said Yunho. “Sorry,” he added with a small laugh. He always felt disbelief at what he let his donsaeng get away with – namely bossiness. But then he figured that aspect was the least controversial secret between them.

They were both shirtless. Changmin pressed his bare chest to Yunho’s back and slid his arms around, fingering Yunho’s jeans. He popped the button, then slid his hands into Yunho’s pockets as if his hands were cold and he wanted to warm them.

Changmin made a small noise. He pulled out Minnie and held her at eye level. Yunho looked over his shoulder to see Changmin’s eyes so wide the whites were visible.

“Did you have this in your pocket the whole day?”

Yunho shifted where he sat, palms rubbing his own thighs, and looked away. “I wore the same jeans from yesterday.”

Changmin said nothing as he slowly lowered his hand, then put the key chain back into Yunho’s pocket. Yunho heard him sigh.

“You’re a fool,” Changmin told him affectionately. He wasn’t wrong.

Changmin gave him a one-armed hug and grazed the back of his fingers against Yunho’s jaw. “Kiss this fool, then,” said Yunho.

Yunho felt Changmin press his forehead between Yunho’s shoulder blades, his eyelashes fluttering against his bare skin. “Are we really – are we really going to – I mean, god, you’re a man and – it’s not – “

“It’s no one’s business but our own,” said Yunho gruffly, before turning around and hugging Changmin close. The angle was all wrong and they ended up falling back on the bed, chests brushing. A blush was creeping upon Changmin’s cheeks as his eyes fluttered. Then he went cross-eyed and leaned up and gave Yunho a kiss.

End.  



End file.
